Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police

aper, as if the mere writing of a letter he migh

n truth, it is a terrible night to be afar from human companionship, with naught but this roaring desolation about and the air above filled with screeching terrors. Even through thick log walls I can hear the surf roaring among the rocks and beat

nd and sleet there will be unending quiet-the stillness which breeds our tongueless people of the North. But this is small comfort for tonight. Yesterday I caught a little

u skin. It is a human skull. Only a short time ago it was a living man, with a voice, and eyes, and brain-and that is what makes me uncomfortable. If it were an old skull, it would be different. But it is a new skull. Almost I fancy at times that there is life lurking in the eyeless sockets, where the red fire

ere the very devil himself, and the steam of it surges out and upward and hides the skull. It is absurd to go to bed, to make an effort

mething that sounded very near to an oath, in the wild tumult of the storm, crumpled the pap

of communing with himself. "I say it won't do, Phil Steele; deuce take it if it will!

eplace again as another blast o

went on, filling his pipe. "Thought it would be a little m

d with clear, steel-gray eyes in which just now there shone a strange glitter, as they rested for a moment upon the white skull over the fire. From his scrutiny of the skull Steele turned to a rough board table, lighted by a twisted bit of cotton cloth, three-quarters submerged in a shallow tin of caribou grease. In

and almost homesick to-night. It took him back to things-to the days of not so very long ago when he had been a part of the life from which the letter came, and when the world had seemed to hold for him all that one could wish. In a retrospective flash there passed before him a vision of those days, when he, Mr. Philip Steele, son of a multimillionaire banker, was one of the favored few in

ege days, who had loved this girl of the hyacinth with the whole of his big, honest heart, but who hadn't been given half a show because of his poverty? And where was Whittemor

red to her. He half-closed his eyes, and as the logs crackled in the fireplace and the wind roared outside, he saw her again as he had seen her that night-gloriously beautiful; memory of the witchery of her

d it for a little-as if her name were the answer to a problem-then laid it aside. For a few moments there remained still the haunting sweetness of the hyacinth. When it was gone, he gave a

t she had called him eccentric. Within himself he knew that he was unlike other men, that the blood in him was calling back to almost forgotten generations, when strong hearts and steady hands counted for manhood rather than stocks and bonds, and when romance and advent

n born, and as far removed from anticipation of his father's millions as though they had never been. He possessed a fortune in his own right, but as yet he had found no use for the income that was piling up. A second expedit

lost. One day a slender, athletically built young man enlisted at Regina for service in the Northwest Mounted Police. Within six months he had made several records for himself, and succeeded in having himself detailed to service in the extreme North, where man-hunting became th

cks which he had hung to dry close to the fire; his worn shoe-packs, shining in a thick coat of caribou grease, and his single suit of steaming underwear that he had washed after supper, and which hung suspended from the ceiling, looking for all the world, in the half dusk of the cabin, like a very thin and headless man. In this gloom, indeed, but one thing shone out white a

ttered, fingering the ragged edge. "I could kill him for what hap

l on his finger tips

n, whimsically. "I believe I'll chuck you into the

y and lowered the

l pack you up to Lac Bain with me. Some morning I'll give you to Bucky N

acked the paper to the inside of his door. To any who might fo

TI

re quasheed by me. Fill your

Northwes